Wednesday, January 04, 2012

For People with "Solutions" to Obesity That They Just Won't Keep to Themselves

I've been thinking more and more about the comments I read on the HuffPo article that I blogged about a few hours ago. It wasn't a surprise to see an abundance of people making comments like, "Just put down the fork", "Just eat fewer calories than you burn", "I hate seeing people eat excessively" and "nobody made you eat, so it's all your fault that you're fat." Although it's exactly what you see every time there's an article about obesity, it still bothered me a lot. There's so much that I wanted to tell these asshats.

My partner's grandmother died of lung cancer. She never smoked. Her husband did, though. He survived much longer than she did and he never got cancer. Sometimes, outside factors are to blame. Sure, it's much easier to tell people to solve it all on their own. That way you don't have to take responsibility for your role in why there is an obesity problem in this country. See, you don't want to admit that your apathy and lack of compassion towards others might affect their lives.

I'm underweight. I struggle to stay at what is seen as a healthy weight. If simply adjusting how much one eats was the key to controlling a person's weight, then almost no one would be obese. No matter how much I eat, I will likely remain underweight. Why? I have an autoimmune condition that makes my GI-tract so FUBAR that I constantly deal with gastric dumping syndrome so bad that my food often goes straight through my body in less than a couple of hours. Eating more doesn't change that. Exercising less doesn't change it.

You know what does change it? Being able to afford to buy and eat just the foods that don't aggravate my problem and having good health care. When I can get to the doctor regularly and get the meds that I need, I can sporadically experience two or three months at a time where my GI-tract works okay. Then, my lupus flares-up again and I drop all of the weight that I may have been able to gain during the good times.

See, that's why your silly little assumptions should be disregarded­. We are not all clones of each other. What works for some people will not work for others. Since you're not their doctor, you don't know what will work for them. You're just guessing. If you don't like to see people be excessive, then why don't you keep your excessive unqualified­ medical advice to yourself? The world doesn't need it.

3 comments:

After years of talking to people about their diets, I am convinced "calories" are absorbed differently by different populations. I think a lot of this stuff is "politically incorrect", so nobody will touch it. (i.e. 85% of black people are lactose intolerant... where is the warning label on the dairy products? HA! Dream on!) Various groups of people are prone to certain allergies or food sensitivities... I finally just said fuck it, and started ASKING customers: Are you Jewish? You might have Crohn's. Etc. To black people, I finally just told them the 85% statistic. (I diagnosed several people, and working at minimum wage too!) But none of them were offended by my questions and even told me their doctors didn't ask them such questions or talk about this stuff. Why not? That should be the first thing you think of when you talk about diets, is what people ate historically, but that is considered a naughty thing to talk about. NO, WE ALL SPRANG IDENTICALLY FROM THE FOREHEAD OF ZEUS and we HAVE NO HISTORY! How dare we imply that DNA and ethnicity might actually matter! (Yes, of course it matters with *diseases* but supposedly has nothing to do with *diets*! Right.)

Some nutritionist put Hawaiians back on a Native Hawaiian diet (which most of them can't afford nowadays, since they all live in the cities!) and in 21 days their diabetes and hypertension was under control:

http://diabetes.about.com/od/nutrition/a/Paleolithic_Diet.htm

Now, according to the weight- watchers-okeydoke, that should NOT work. Pineapples have tons of carbs and natural sugars, coconuts are MADE of fat. Yet, these particular people responded to this diet since it is historically what their genes were evolved to do. (They probably have more digestive enzymes for these foods and break them down faster than white people, although I have no proof of this.) But see, if you added up the CALORIES, it would be high calories (esp coconut and avocados!), but they lost weight on the diet.

This proves to me it doesn't have shit to do with calories but with WHAT we are eating and how your body handles it. And we have virtually no research on this, so we are out here trying to figure out this shit on our own, while they count calories and talk nonsense.

I resent being told what is my 'healthy weight'. By their charts and education stuff, I am only healthy at 120 pounds. And yet, I am 200 pounds. Anything below 165 and I'll catch every pathogen that floats by my nose and end up with chronic bronchitis, dishydrotic excema, and the Medication Shakes. At 200 all I can complain about is not looking so good in jeans. And no, I didn't get to 200 pounds eating ice cream and tater tots.

I have often been surprised at the hostility of our society towards people who are fat. And as subjects of humor. This cruelty is similar to disabilophobia (my word for the fear and loathing of people who are disabled) and the disability jokes in films, as well as making disabled people the villain. Stereotypes of people who are heavy is well known.

Two people I know who have expressed hostility about people who are obese, when questioned about it by me, don't have good reasons. One is formerly fat, my sister, who I supported lifelong, who lost the weight at age 50. A decade plus later, she's revealing all kinds of bigotry to me (we are on different coasts for decades and I'm much older). I point it out to her. The other friend is child of alcoholics and obesity,she says, shows lack of control (her opinion, which I point out is not possible and probably science related). Some people look to "groups" to "diss"...no news.

About Me

Above all else, I am proof that having an incurable cancer doesn't mean that your life is over. I am also the mother of a gifted child who has been an artist since she was born. We live in the southern part of the beautiful state of Louisiana. I'm a biology student on hiatus as I heal from treatment. Besides English, I can speak Arabic, a bit of French and Spanish and nothing more than a few phrases in German but I'm working on it. I love cats and plants even though I only have 2 of each. Some of my friends call me Tulip. You're free to do the same.